


I like you down to the sugar on your fingertips

by grapehyasynth



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dating, Early Relationship, Established Relationship, Fluff, Food, Kisses, M/M, POV Patrick Brewer, Set between 4.01 and 4.02, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28367799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: David takes Patrick for a sweet second(ish) date.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 57
Kudos: 251





	I like you down to the sugar on your fingertips

“So I have an idea for our second date,” David says, after the dust - of the body at the motel, of Mrs. Rose’s hysteria, and of Patrick stumbling over not being ready for the sex he very, very much wants to have with David - has settled. 

“Second date?” Patrick blinks innocently at him over the register. “I didn’t know you realized last night was our _first_ date. And since you didn’t realize, it kinda feels like we should do a new _first_ date where you’re fully aware that we’re on a date.” 

“Okay, well, I realize it _now_ , so can we put this whole overanalyzed topic to bed? To sleep,” David clarifies, and his lips twist in obvious amusement at his own joke. “Not to, _you know_.” 

Patrick would roll his eyes if he weren’t so enamored of everything about David, including David’s jokes at Patrick’s expense. He’ll accept a little embarrassed blush if it means David looks like he’s won something. “So we’re falsifying the official record to show that last night was our first date.” 

“Retroactively applying knowledge we now both share,” David says, hands dancing like a little ball in a children’s sing-a-long video, “is a rewording I might suggest.” 

“Taken under advisement. So what’s the date idea?” 

David shifts forward onto the balls of his feet, looking as excited at the prospect of dating Patrick as Patrick is of dating David. An inconceivable amount of excited. “Are you free tomorrow night at 1AM? Like, Sunday into Monday, so technically Monday morning at 1AM. Um, not that I don’t want to do something tonight, so it could be our third date if you wanted to do something tonight or tomorrow, but we kind of have to do this late at night and we’re closed Monday, so I figured-” 

“So you figured it would be the perfect time for a night hike,” Patrick finishes, nodding sagely. “That’s a great idea, David. I will make sure to put new batteries in my headlamp.” 

David looks more disgusted by this than he had by the corpse residing just doors away from his own bedroom. “Mhm, um, a night hike sounds like the right way to attract the wrong kind of cougars, and headlamps should be left to people who work in mines.” 

“Noted,” Patrick - who has already decided he wants, someday, to take David for a hike - grins. “I will probably have to skip dinner with you tomorrow night then, so that I’m getting in a solid five hours of sleep before our date.” 

David’s face does some delightful machinations where he tries to press the judgment out of his features and just ends up looking mildly panicked. “Can’t you just sleep in late on Monday?” 

“And waste the precious sunlight hours? I wouldn’t dream of it!” He flips his padfolio closed. “I’m excited for our date, David.”

“Um. I’m feeling less so, now, but.” There’s no regret in David’s little smile, though. “Do you, um, need any more info about what we’ll be doing? I just know if it were _me_ I’d want to know the activity, the duration of the drive, how to dress-”

“Just tell me when you’ll be picking me up and I’ll set my alarm for five minutes before that. I can just-” He makes a motion with both hands, like a plane taking off a runway. “Roll out of bed and go.” 

A customer arrives, so he doesn’t have time to further draw out the rapidly deepening horror on David’s face as he processes their vast differences in personal style. Though if David really believes Patrick would ever just _roll out of bed and go_ for one of their dates, then Patrick might need to be more overt about just how much he likes David. 

Elmdale’s main thoroughfare is mostly dark when they arrive, sidewalks lit only occasionally by streetlights. Patrick climbs out of the Roses’ Lincoln into the municipal lot where David has parked and switches on the headlamp he’s wearing. “Good thing I brought this bad boy.” 

David comes around the car scowling and making grabby hand for one of the two thermoses Patrick is holding. (David had shown up at Ray’s with green tea in thermoses he’d borrowed from Twyla, and though David had refused to talk about it, Patrick knows just enough about David’s living arrangements to imagine that he’d had to make the tea before his family went to bed, had had to deal with all their questions and teasing.) “Okay, it’s just, I’m normally the one in a relationship that people are embarrassed to be seen with, so I’m not really equipped for this role reversal. You should probably take that off.”

Patrick doesn’t, not for another minute anyway, because he enjoys the way David’s lips thin out every time he glances at the offending item. 

David leads him past the hardware store and the cookery and the health food shop and turns down an alley next to a bakery. Patrick’s tempted to ask him if whatever they’re about to do is technically legal, but David’s dressed in a very soft sweater and his hair is still a little flat at the back where he’d napped before picking Patrick up, and Patrick finds those two things alone are enough to make him trust David’s judgment. 

At the back of the bakery, an open door spills a patch of light onto the pavement and a waft of fragrance into the air. Patrick tilts his head up to chase the scent. 

“Come on,” David urges, looking pleased, and he takes Patrick’s hand with his own free one. 

They walk right into the bakery’s kitchen, long rows of fridges and shelves and ovens and countertops, all looking worn from wear but shining clean. The space is at least ten degrees hotter than the already warm summer night outside, and five or six people in white aprons and hairnets move about, not frantically but with efficient purpose. One of them glances up as they enter and waves to David. 

“Hi, Glen. Two, please.” 

Glen nods and claps his hands together, sending a puff of flour into the air. Between that and the smell, it’s a pretty magical scene. 

“Pinch me,” Patrick says to David, as Greg takes what looks to be a giant ladle with holes and begins fishing in a tub for something. 

“Why? Are you tired? Have more tea.”

“I’m on a donut run in the middle of the night with the guy I like. It can only be a dream.” 

David rolls his eyes but winds himself around Patrick’s nearest arm in a funny little hug. “Your lines are terrible.” 

“Will you help me make them better?” Patrick lifts his chin in a silent request for a kiss, which David grants. It’s inconceivable that this is supposed to someday become normal, not of note, to be with someone like this. To be with David like this. “How did you know about this?” 

“Please,” David huffs. “I know everything sugar-related in the county.” He watches the bakers work for a beat, then admits, “Ivan, who makes the cinnamon buns for the motel, works here sometimes. He told me that they have to get baked goods to the local cafes and restaurants by an inhuman hour in the morning so they start baking a little after midnight, and a few times a month you can come and eat the deformed ones for free. I’ve come here a few times, but never - always just me.”

Patrick thinks, again, that someday he has to share his hikes with David. _Always just me_ becoming _us, maybe always._

Glen is back, with a simple white plate and two of the most mouth-watering donuts Patrick’s ever seen, all shades of brown and cream, still steaming from the oil, coated in a thin layer of sugar. 

“Deformed?” Patrick asks incredulously. “These look perfect.” 

David shakes his head at Glen, who grins. “Amateur.” 

They eat their donuts in the dark front room of the bakery, their chairs the only ones not turned up on the tabletops. Patrick’s teeth sink right through on the first bite, but the donut bounces back, all fluff and air and hot, sweet stretches of just-cooked dough. 

“Wow,” he breathes. “Maybe it’s 1AM talking, but this might be the best donut I’ve ever had.” 

David, already halfway finished his donut, nods. “A lot of people think you need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to donuts, but they forget that just doing the basics _really, really well_ is a much more valiant undertaking.” 

“Hmm.” Patrick takes in the way the shadow of the lettering on the store’s front window falls across David’s face, the way his lips are dusted in granules of sugar. “I’d say that sounds a lot like the ethos of our store.” 

He still gets a thrill every time he says _our_ _store_ , and he knows David does too. He knows it does something to David when he compliments their business, because he gets the same fluttery feeling in his chest, the same uncontainable pride and hope. So yeah, maybe as he says it he’s hoping it’ll make David set down his donut and glance up at the ceiling with emotion, but the kiss David leans in to give him is all free will. 

The sugar on David’s lips makes it a little like kissing David’s stubble, and he swipes his tongue through it. He remembers Rachel wearing different flavored chapsticks early in their relationship, but he doesn’t remember that feeling or tasting anything like this. 

There’s sugar all over David’s fingertips too, and Patrick wants to lick them clean, wants the roughness of the sugar against the moisturized softness of David’s skin, but he has to go back to Ray’s after this and not implode from wanting David, so he settles for licking his own fingers instead. 

On their way out, David looks wistfully at the donuts and muffins and breads arrayed on the kitchen’s counters. “They also make some filled with cream and jelly, but those you have to pay for, and I purposefully didn’t bring my wallet so that I’d only have the free ones.” 

Patrick’s hand is halfway to his pocket before he frowns. “You didn’t bring your wallet?” 

David nods seriously. “It’s called a budget.” 

“No, David - you _drove_ us here.” 

David blinks. “And?” 

“And, when you drive, you’re supposed to have your license, which I assume is in your wallet?” 

“Oh my god, not you too. It’s fine! If you get pulled over and you don’t have your wallet, they have to give you time to go get it, or something.” 

It’s definitely too early in their relationship for Patrick to say something like _but what if you’re in an accident_ , because people who’ve been on two dates don’t worry about each other’s health and safety. Maybe business partners do, but it’s hard to make that argument when it’s almost 2AM. “Well, it would make me feel more comfortable, going forward, if you brought your license whenever you drive us.” 

David groans and covers half his face with a hand, but he’s mostly straightened out his features by the time he looks back down at Patrick and says, “Fine. Fine!” 

“Thank you.” Patrick finishes fishing out his own wallet. “How many do you want?” 

He’s at least glad David is driving this time, because it means Patrick can gingerly hold the greasy bag of filled donuts on his lap instead of worrying the whole ride about what a sharp turn could do to David’s sweater.

There’s a stretch of highway between Elmdale and Schitt’s Creek where the moonlight makes stripes across the road from the way it hits the forest on either side. The alternating light and shadows, which wouldn’t be out of place in David’s wardrobe, pass over them both, and Patrick glances at David, suddenly full of a feeling he’s only experienced on a few, perfect roadtrips - a feeling of never wanting to reach their destination, of wanting to keep driving, of thinking that driving anywhere together could be enough. 

He tries to hand David the donuts when David drops him back off at Ray’s, but David shakes his head. “They’ll be gone before I wake up if I bring them within biting distance of my family. You should keep them. Um, I was thinking, though, that I could come over later for brunch and we could have some more? Maybe around noon?” 

“That sounds more like lunch than brunch,” Patrick says, because he has to, because he knows David will have an opinion. 

“Is it lunch, though, if it’s your first meal and you’re eating breakfast foods?” 

Patrick unbuckles his seatbelt and leans across to kiss David goodnight. They’re already into the low thirties for kisses and it’s only been two full days. “Thank you for a lovely date.” 

“Does that mean you’ll call it brunch?” 

“See you at noon, David,” he says in lieu of affirmation, and David grumbles at him as he gets out of the car, but a beringed hand waves out the driver’s window before he quietly unlocks Ray’s front door. 

He takes the donuts up to his room - he likes Ray, but there’s not much sense of personal property when it comes to food in their shared kitchen - and sets his alarm for 10:30. He’ll need time to run out and buy the makings for David’s coffee if they’re going to do brunch properly. 


End file.
